Finnish Hardcore Punk

Mellakka – The band

Welcome to the official Mellakka -website. Mellakka was a Finnish Hardcore Punk band formed in a small Finnish coast/industrial town called Rauma in year 1983. During their relatively short career in the mid/late 80’s, the band visited the recording studio three times, resulting two ep’s and a three-song demo. A compilation album of these songs was released in 2004 and was named “R.I.P. recordings 1984-1986”.

The beginning

Pete and Jappe were friends, and started the band at the age of fifteen (Pete) and sixteen (Jappe). After spending a couple of years banging on cardboard boxes and yelling into the cleaning brushes in Jappe’s father’s boiler room. They were also spending time together listening punk rock. Bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, U.K. Subs and Lama were the fi rst big names, but the fi nal kick for forming a punk band came when the guys got a hold of Discharge’s “Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing”-lp, and “Why?”-ep. That was the time when the fi rst Propaganda Records’ compilation album was released too, the new Finnish HC-punk bands on that record, like Riistetyt, Kaaos, Terveet Kädet all sounded awesome. Then they had the pleasure of seeing Appendix and Destrucktions playing live at their home town. That was a really infl uential HC-gig, especially Destrucktions. Without these bands it could have been a really different story.

After getting their hands on some equipment, the guys started to practice in Jappe’s parents garage. After practicing for a while, the band was named Mellakka, and the first real line-up was Pete (voc), Kapulainen (bass), Janne (guitar), Jappe (drums). The band was ready to make it’s first gigs, and did, but quite soon the vocalist Pete left the band, and joined the other HC-band in Rauma punk scene, Pohjasakka, as a bass player. In the meantime, Jappe met yet another bass player called Holkka. Kapulainen was ready to sing and Holkka naturally took the job of playing the bass. This change seemed to work, and the band sounded much better than before.

Ei ep

Soon Mellakka had enough new songs and it was time to visit the studio. The first Ei ep, was published in autumn ‘84 by the guys themselves, mainly because nobody else would do it. Almost all the records at that time were published by the Propaganda Records, but Mellakka thought that they should release it themselves. All the other new bands were doing the same, Sekaannus, Massacre and bands like that.

The musical influences of the band can be spotted on the record. There was some disappointments after fi nishing the ep, it didn’t sound nowhere near as great as “Hear Nothing”, but at the end of the day the guys had to be more than pleased with the result. Everything in the studio went quite well, for being the fi rst time. The place was called Laser-studio and it was built in an old barn. It was run by a religious fanatic fool, but the guy who did the actual recording/mixing was a hippie called Pertti Palonen and he really has quite a lot to do in how both of the ep’s and the demo are sounding… a very nice guy. They have only good memories of him. He is probably the main reason why all of the Mellakka-recordings are made in that same place. The line-up for the “Ei”-ep was Kapulainen (voc), Janne (guitar), Jappe (drums), Holkka (bass). The guitarist Janne left the band right after the ep was released. Luckily there was a help near by. A guitarist named Perttula, was digging the “Ei”-ep, hard, and was more than happy to join the group. The band continued to practice, made some new songs. Soon it was time to hit the studio for the second time.

Itsenäisyyspaivä ep

Itsenäisyyspaivä ep from January ‘85 was made for Rat Poison Records run by Mr P. Järveläinen. Rat Poison published other punk/HC music too at that time, bands like Kuolleet Kukat. After visiting one practice session and hearing the new songs, Järveläinen reserved new studio time for the band. Only two weeks before the studio, the singer Kapulainen had enough, threw the mic to the floor saying “FYA, I never gonna sing a goddamn note again!”, and just like that, it was over for him. Gotta respect that. Well anyways, the band was in trouble, new singers didn’t grow on trees as they say. In desperation the guys even called to Mike Poison, who is/was known for singing for the great HC-band called Destrucktions. He promised to visit to the studio, to see what can be done, but didn’t sound TOO excited… It was getting clearer and clearer that only one man can do this job. The band got together with the original singer Pete, and after a long discussion and convincing, he decided to join the band again, and this time he stayed for good. The band did get the practice they needed before the studio and everything went just right after all. The guys thought that the result was far better than the fi rst time around, sound wise, song wise, in all the ways. The band added some guitar riffs, solos and other non-HC-tricks in their songs, which made this record a bit more interesting than the fi rst one. But no success without some losses, soon after the second ep was out, Holkka left the band.

Perttula’s good friend Altti was to replace Holkka right away, as the band had some gigs to take care of. First he played the bass, later the guitar. The year ‘85 went by making new songs again and practicing, maybe more than ever. The absolute best gig was in Helsinki at Lepakko 5.18.1985. With them there were at least Rattus, Maho Neitsyt and Painajainen. There is VHS footage of that gig, but it’s recorded so poorly, that you can’t really tell what song they are playing at times, but ‘85-’86 they were at their very best form.

The demo and the end

The band tried to find a publisher for their lp, and there was some discussions but that was far as it went and it never came thru. Anyways, the band decided to visit the studio just to make a demo if nothing else and have some fun. The result was three songs (Totuus II, Anti-kaikki, Turhaa taistelua), recorded in five hours, which have a lot of musical influences by metal/thrash scene of that time. This demo was recorded in February 1986, and was never even meant to be released, as they were going to record the songs again later with more time in the studio. The line-up for the demo was Perttula (bass), Jappe (drums), Pete (voc), Altti (guitar). Mellakka had about ten to fifteen other songs from the same period of time than these three songs, but never got the time to record them. Damn shame. After the demo was made the band continued for some time, but the guys of the band started to get bored with the small town and soon everybody was leaving the place to different directions. It was time to lay the band to rest.

Mellakka has practiced together few times after that. Last session was in 1993. The band got together and played few days just for fun with the line-up: Perttula (guitar), Jappe (drums), Pete (voc) and Sätkä (bass). This is probably the line-up the band would have if they should play together again.